Fourth bomber strikes Pakistan in one day

PESHAWAR: A series of suicide attacks killed six in Pakistan on Wednesday, unnerving citizens whose growing sense of security has been shaken by multiple blasts this week.

The latest assault happened in Peshawar, said police, after a bomber rode a motorcycle into a van carrying a judge travelling through an upmarket neighbourhood.

“It was a suicide attack,” senior police official Sajjad Khan said, adding that five people including the judge were injured. The driver of the van was killed.

The attack came after two suicide bombers launched an attack on a government compound in Pakistan’s restive tribal area earlier on Wednesday, killing five people and wounding seven others.

“One attacker came by foot and started firing at forces while the other was on a motorbike and rammed into the main gate of the complex,” Hamidullah Khattak, an administration official in Mohmand tribal district, said.

The one on foot was shot dead while the second blew himself up, he said, but not before they managed to kill three tribal police and two civilians. The military confirmed the toll.

Later, police said, another suicide bomber blew himself up when security forces surrounded him during a search operation in the area. Wednesday’s attacks came two days after a deadly suicide bombing rocked the Punjab provincial capital Lahore, killing at least 13 people and wounding dozens more.

Also on Monday two members of a bomb disposal unit were killed in Quetta, capital of restive Balochistan province, when a device they were defusing went off. It was unclear if the Quetta bomb was related to the other attacks. — AFP